


Chiaroscuro

by T Verano (t_verano)



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Episode Related, F/M, Gen, New Year's Eve, s2e13 related
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-10
Updated: 2012-08-10
Packaged: 2017-11-11 20:19:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/482536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t_verano/pseuds/T%20Verano
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>New Year's Eve 2011. Looking back, looking forward, trying to hold things together.</p><p>(Takes place 24 hours after season 2 episode 13.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chiaroscuro

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "resolutions" challenge at the [h50-flashfic community](http://h50-flashfic.livejournal.com/) on LJ. Originally posted there Jan. 9, 2012 ([click here for the original post](http://h50-flashfic.livejournal.com/37668.html)).

**_New Year's Eve_ **

The soft light from a dozen candles turns Malia's skin even more golden, and Chin props himself up on his elbow, letting his eyes roam over every beautiful inch of his beautiful wife.

His wife. 

She's smiling at him. There may be much this dying year needs forgiveness for, but all Chin needs to do is trace the curve of Malia's cheek with his fingers, to lean over and brush his lips against hers, and the past year's troubles fall away into the shadows. 

Malia is light. His light.

And she tastes of champagne and joy and redemption.

He deepens their kiss without hurry; he intends to see the old year out and the new year in the same way: making slow, sweet love to the woman he'd lost and found again. Making up for the past, making promises for the future.

She pulls back for a moment and gives him another smile. "Any resolutions?" she whispers, teasing.

 _Yes._ More than he has words for.

"Just this," he says, locking his eyes on hers until he hears her breath catch, before he drops his head to kiss her again. "Just this."

===========================

The band totally kicks ass and Kono rides the music like it's a wave she's carving. By the time they take a break she's a little breathless, loose, feeling good. She eels her way through the crowd of friends and strangers to a spot further down the beach and drops down onto the damp sand, wanting to chill out for a few minutes and watch the moonlit waves.

She used to think she'd trade almost anything to have those waves back the way she once owned them. 

Some days she still would. The waves she's been riding lately have been pretty fucking heavy: Jenna. _Fryer._ What she had to do and the way she had to do it.

But waves teach you your strength. She learned that a long time ago. 

Behind her the band starts up again and she hears voices calling her name. She stands up, stretches, smiles as a wave runs up the sand to wrap its cool, fleeting hands around her ankles. 

It feels good to be wanted. 

It feels good to be at home again in her life.

It feels, lately, when she admits it to herself, _frightening_. She saw what Wo Fat did to Steve in North Korea, she's seen what he and Joe — and whoever or whatever Shelburne is — are doing to Steve now. 

Sometimes waves teach you your strength. Sometimes they break you.

Too much has been broken already.

A voice calls her name again, nearer, and she pushes the worry away for tonight. Tonight is music and life and laughter and feeling good. Tomorrow? 

Tomorrow is being what riding the waves has made her: strong.

Strong enough to lean on. 

Strong enough, she hopes, to help.

===========================

"Hey," Danny says as he crosses the lawn and heads towards the empty chair beside Steve's chair. "You forget to pay your power bill?" He plants the sixpack of Longboards he brought on the sand between the two chairs and sits down. Uninvited, but he sees no reason for that to stop him. He doesn't have anywhere else to be, anyway. 

And maybe, just maybe, Steve needs him here. 

Steve shakes his head, one single sharp movement. He's as silent and dark as his fucking house, even with the bright moonlight falling on his face, and Danny wants to grind his teeth. Feeding Wo Fat inch by conscious, screaming inch into a meat grinder has been at the top of Danny's list of New Year's resolutions for weeks, yeah, but this, here, tonight, isn't just Wo Fat.

It's Joe.

He doesn't bother to say who he means when he asks, "You talk to him since last night?" 

Last night, when Steve ran his crazy solo super-ninja op to save Joe's ungrateful ass. Danny kind of wants to hunt Joe down and give him back to Adam Noshimori for that. Gift-wrapped.

Steve just shakes his head again. His hand is clenched around the arm of his chair so tightly he's probably getting splinters, losing circulation to his fingers. Hell, developing gangrene, for all Danny knows. He reaches across the narrow space between their chairs and flicks Steve's arm with the back of his hand.

"Beer," he says firmly. "Let it go for ten minutes and have a beer, all right? I'd rather see the new year in with somebody who's actually here with me."

Steve drags his dark stare away from the ocean and turns it on Danny. "How do I let it go, D? I can't. I just… can't." 

Danny toes off his loafers, sliding his foot across the sand to nudge the side of Steve's bare foot. "Ten minutes, babe. That's all I'm asking. We talk about football or baton twirling or Max's taste in Halloween costumes, I don't care. Politics. Global warming. Anything. Gracie's spelling homework, which, by the way, she is _acing_."

"Baton twirling?" Steve asks, and Danny grins at himself for putting that note in Steve's voice.

"Or football," he reminds Steve, "or Grace's spelling homework. Pay attention."

"Yeah, about that," Steve says, and fuck if he isn't sounding like shit again. "I'm sorry, Danny. I know this was supposed to be…Rachel — this year, the baby and everything — I'm just…I'm really sorry."

Danny squeezes his eyes closed. Maybe it's time to man up and admit — to himself — that he needs to be here with Steve tonight as much as Steve needs to have him here. 

Just, Steve doesn't need to haul Danny's garbage around along with his own. "Yeah," he says to Steve as he makes himself open his eyes and meet Steve's stupidly worried stare without flinching. "So, uh, football? Or spelling? What's it going to be?"

Steve's face smooths out and he tilts his head back against the slats of his chair, aiming his eyes at the ocean again. It's pathetic, really, the way he's trying to pretend his jaw isn't clenched tight enough to make Danny's jaw ache in sympathy just from looking at it. But at least he finally reaches for one of Danny's beers. "Fuck football," he says as he opens the bottle. "Talk to me about Grace."

Danny can do that. 

And there's a line of warmth between them where his foot is still nudged up against Steve's, Danny can do that, too. 

One way or another, he's fucking going to chase away the shadows for them both.

Even if it's only for tonight.


End file.
